Shadows in Your Moonlight
by Ryoko no Shinigami
Summary: A dark, angsty little something that crawled from that spot under the bed where light never reaches...which is where I'm from, coincidentally...PART TWO IS UP! ARE YOU LISTENING? no?.....ok then.
1. And They Wail Endlessly in My Ears, And ...

Title: Shadows in Your Moonlight

Title: Shadows in Your Moonlight part 1/? 

Author: Ryoko no Shinigami

Warnings: Implied boy/boy relationship. You not cool with that? Fine with me. Just don't blow bubbles of righteousness up my ass, please. Oh, and expect extreme angst. THIS HAS BEEN RATED EXTREMELY DISTURBING! It involves a severe mental breakdown, as well as disturbing descriptions of death. This is a warning to **everyone** who isn't comfortable with angst to back away, slowly. Oh, and please leave some pocky for me on your way out.

Pairings: 1x2

Archives: Fanfiction.net. If you want it, please just ask. I'd be flattered, really.

Notes: I don't know why, I was just getting ready to go to medieval re enactment with a friend, and all of a sudden, my angsty muse, Ryoko, came up and boinked me on the head with the Chibi Scythe of Doom ™ (hey, can I help it she doubles as my chibi muse?) Anyway, enjoy the fic

Disclaimers: Don't own 'em. All I have is a radio, a TV/VCR, a small library of anime videos, and a dog. And exactly $3.28 american. That's not even enough to buy a greasy dinner at a truck stop so suing me is a real exercise in futility.

Dedication: To Rystal, as usual, for getting me through all my own mental breakdowns more or less intact.

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Heero woke without opening his eyes, unable for the moment to imagine what could have woken him from his sound sleep. He fully came awake as he realized it was the unusual chill on the other side of the bed. Sitting up, he wondered why it was so dark before remembering the heavy velvet curtains that Duo had hung around the bed earlier that day. In fact, wasn't Duo supposed to be here? That explained the cold, but…Duo?

Heero pushed back the dark red velvet of the curtain with one hand, and his eyes flew immediately to the figure sitting in the window seat, face flooded in moonlight. Body still slim after a childhood on the streets, despite hardened muscle of hard training. Heero took a moment to savor the halo effect the pale light caused, casting a pale aura in the long chestnut strands that framed his lover's face. Then a frown flashed across his own features as he realized that what he had perceived as a heavenly glow came from the dampness on his beloved's cheeks.

He was out of bed and at Duo's side in a moment. Looking down on him, he saw that the smaller boy was hunched over his arms, which were rested on knees drawn up to his chest. Rocking himself back and forth, what had at first seemed an angelic vision now appeared the picture of human misery.

"Duo?"

The boy flinched at the sound of his own name, a wordless moan forced between teeth clenched tight.

"Duo, what's wrong? What's the matter?"

Finally, after an eternity of waiting, Duo turned to look at him. 

"I'm a murderer, Heero."

A look of confusion flashed across Heero's face. 

"What?"

"I'm a murderer. A cold-blooded, heartless murderer!"

With every word, Duo's voice rose until at last it became a heartbroken wail. The boy buried his face, crossing his hands over the nape of his neck, as though protecting himself from a blow he was sure would come.

Heero shook himself out of his shock. "You're a soldier, Duo. We **have** to kill those who get in our way. We fight for peace and…"

"No." Duo's voice took on a deathly calm as he raised his head to stare blankly ahead of him. "No. **You** are the Soldier. You fight for the peace and justice that the world needs. But me," he laughed, bitterly, "I am the Shinigami, God of Death, Great Demon and Destroyer of Worlds." And he looked at Heero, and his eyes pierced straight to his heart. "And I have killed innocents. Have you never wondered, Heero? About those houses around which we wage our endless battles? Have you ever really believed them all to be empty? They were **homes**, Heero, where children laughed and played. And we destroyed those homes. We destroyed those children." His voice took on that crazed quality again, "And I have **seen** them, Heero. And I **hear** them." 

Duo raised a hand to his face, and stared at it in horror before twining his fingers through his own loose hair. "I **hear** them, screaming, and they never stop! And they tell me their stories, of how they hid under their beds, or in the cupboards, hidden away by their families, waiting for the fighting to stop. And they tell me how the walls of their homes fell around them, or how they went up in flames. And they were trapped. Always they were trapped, without a way to escape or to scream or to…or to…"

Duo stopped, gasping painfully for breath as he staggered to his feet. "And they never stop! I have killed too many, and their voices ring endlessly in my ears! The forgotten ones wail and scream, but the mourned ones whisper their stories to me quietly and walk on." He brought a hand up to wipe the sweat from his fevered brow.

"The quiet ones are the worst. Because I know that for every bit of peace I enjoy to finally have refuge from the wailing, there is another wailing somewhere, of a mother or father. Let me tell you a story, Heero," he pushed his lover down into the window seat and stood before him, glorious in his anguish. "Once, while on leave after a mission, I went walking in a town where we were stationed. And the town had been ravaged by war. **Our** war. And I saw a very old woman, wrapped in rags on a street corner. And she was wailing. And all the other people passed her by. But I stood there, staring at her, and finally I asked her, 'What makes you cry, lady?'."

And she answered me. Told me that she was a great-grandmother, and had seen her entire family, three generations of youth, her son, and his family, and her own little great-grandchild, shot by soldiers because they were suspected of smuggling goods to the other side. And I asked her, 'What side were these evil men on, lady?'."

And Duo stood there, for a single, heart-wrenching second, hands held out to Heero in entreaty. And when he spoke, his voice was a hopeless wail of loss and misery.

"They were on **our** side, Heero! And they killed them all, right down to the smallest newborn infant, and left the old woman to die alone! And do you know what I did? I threw the woman a coin and I walked away! I walked away!"

Suddenly, Duo's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "But now, Heero, I hear the old woman's voice. And she knows, now, that I wasn't just some boy out for a walk, but a soldier on his day off! And she knows that I could just as easily been part of the group that killed her family. And she tells me," and his head dropped to rest in Heero's lap, "she tells me that she is waiting."

Suddenly, Heero noticed the light of insanity in Duo's eyes. As Heero gasped in horror, Duo stood up again, face cheery with a falsely bright smile. "And what do I do? Why, I play the Joker, of course! Bright-eyed Shinigami, Destroyer with a Grin, that's me!" he threw out his arms as he stood before the window, as though he embraced the moon and stars and everything the night sky had to offer. 

"Look at it, Heero! One star for every man, woman, and child that I've sent to their death! Isn't it beautiful? And look!" he pointed out the window, "there's the star for the infant grandchild of that old woman!" and he broke out in hysterical laughter.

Heero had wondered how long it would take for Duo's cries to wake the household. There came a tentative knocking on his bedroom door, as the soft voice of Quatre called out, muffled by the thick wood, "Duo? Heero, is everything all right?"

"All right? Of course I'm all right! Just contemplating the waste, the complete waste of all the destruction I have wrought! I could turn cartwheels just thinking about it!" and Duo laughed with childish glee.

Heero ran for the door. He wrenched it open, dove through, and pulled it shut as fast as he could. Leaning against the solid oak, he looked up panting into three sets of very worried eyes. Pushing his mussed hair out of his eyes, he whispered in a voice that spoke volumes.

"I think Duo may have just gone completely insane."


	2. Glory Like Circles in the Water

Title: Shadows in Your Moonlight 2/

Title: Shadows in Your Moonlight 2/? 'Glory Like Circles in the Water'

Author: Ryoko no Shinigami

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Includes the mentally unstable, cruelty, and strangeness. Also includes implied boy/boy relationships.

Pairings: 1x2, and 3x4 in other parts, implied only

Notes: After finishing the first part of this series, 'And They Wail Endlessly in My Ears, And is it Not Glorious?', I had to question where exactly I wanted the rest of the story to go. I floundered for more than a week, but my muses hit suddenly, and this is what they came up with. Admittedly, this is nothing like I thought this story would turn out. The quotes in Duo's monologues are from various works of Shakespeare, among them, 'Julius Caesar'. And yes, it *is* spelled 'Caesar', not 'Cesar'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next several days, all four pilots tried to deal with Duo. His condition seemed to deteriorate every day. Heero sat and watched as he stormed up and down his room, gesturing with his hands and shouting about nothing, jumping wildly from one tangent to another. This was broken by crying fits, spells when he sat shivering in a corner and backed away from anyone who tried to comfort him. Sometimes, he seemed maniacally happy. When he slept, he was fitful and restless. It was draining Heero, who stubbornly refused any aid from the others.

They were sitting in their room, side by side on the bed. Duo had been silent for about an hour, after having screamed for ages until his voice was raw. He turned to Heero, a touch of hysteria in his whispered voice.

"Did you know, Heero? About Caesar? They killed him in cold blood, for no reason other than they thought he was a threat to their power. Stabbed him to death in his own Senate House. His own friends! He worried them. But he got his own back. Brutus was troubled, tormented by visions of the ghost of Caesar. Eventually he committed suicide, on the run, alone, and friendless." He leapt away and threw out his arms. "'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him! The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones!'" and he broke into wild gales of laughter, ignoring his real audience in favor of one that only he could see.

Heero shuddered at the cruel humor in Duo's voice. The smaller boy sat and threw his arm around Heero's shoulders, speaking between giggles. 

"These violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die. In triumph they die, Heero, just like us! Like the fire and powder which as they kiss consume. Just like fire, Heero, which consumes everything…everything…" and he was off, hair streaming around him, tears running down his cheeks, looking strange on his bright, laughing face.

Heero had to get out. When Wufei came up to check on them, as he regularly did, Heero stumbled to the door. "Take care of him, I'll be back," was all he said, and he was gone.

Wufei stood blinking in the doorway. Duo seemed terribly interested in the coverlet on the bed, and was picking at it fretfully. Looking up at Wufei, he murmured, "O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention…" Wufei started, then realized that Duo's eyes were glazed over. He was not really seeing him. He walked carefully over to the bed, and knelt beside the boy, who stared still at the door.

"Duo? Duo, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Wufei. I hear you."

"What's wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?"

Duo didn't answer, instead, he turned to Wufei, a small smile playing on his lips. "What do you think of justice, Wufei? About why we're fighting?"

Wufei blinked. "Justice is what we live for, Duo. You know that. For our existence to have any meaning, we must defend justice. Many people have given their lives so that I can further justice for my clan. I live so that others can have justice."

"But it's all really pointless in the end, isn't it?"

Wufei was too shocked to move. "How can you say that? It is for justice that we are all fighting. So that others don't have to go through what we did and…"

"But it will never work." Duo walked to the window and sat down on the seat, "We'll die for this, and eventually the very people we're fighting for will start another pointless war, and there will be more martyrs, and it will happen again, and again, and again."

"That's not true."

"It is, and you know it." He sneered at Wufei, every word punctuated with scorn. "You just don't want to see that everything you've based your life on is foolishness. You don't want to think that your little wife gave her life so that you can further the idiocy in which you are now so steeped, you can't even see how stupid it is. And to top it all off, you didn't even succeed in saving your people!"

"How dare you! You don't know what you're talking about! Merian was noble and brave and strong!"

"And that master of yours. So brave, sacrificing himself and everyone so that dear Wufei can further spout about justice!" Duo spat, "It's sickening. He wasted his life so that you can waste yours, so that you can soak your hands in useless blood of other stupid soldiers."

Wufei felt his fists clench as he stood. "My master gave his life so that other people on other colonies could finally have justice. He was willing to do anything so long as he was never beaten."

"So what? He's still dead, isn't he? All your people are dead too. You couldn't save them. Your wife died so that you could protect them, and you couldn't even do that. So what makes you think you can save anyone else? What makes you think they want to be saved?" Duo fixed him with a cold stare, "And why do you think you, a weak child who never wanted anything more than to be a scholar, could ever be worthy of saving them? The good is oft interred with their bones, Wufei. And any small good you have done will go with you when you die. You sacrificed everything, your hopes, your learning. And your wife, and so many others, gave everything they had. And it will all go to nothing."

And what could Wufei say to that? It was true, he felt it in his heart. He was unworthy. He had never had the strength, never had the right to pilot Nataku. He stumbled back, falling against the wall in his shock.

"So, you see now that it's true. Your wife died in vain, and your master, and all your people. And so will you." And that cruel smile still lingered on Duo's lips as he began chanting, a toneless mantra. Wufei staggered to the door. Out in the hall, he slid down the wall to sit in a boneless heap. Weak. He was so weak. And through the door, he heard the rhythmic chanting of a soft, mad voice.

"Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till by broad spreading it disperse to nought"


End file.
